


Redacted Promises

by Notoyax17



Series: White Collar Agent/Dad Extraordinaire Phil Coulson AU [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, White Collar
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-04-30 13:14:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5165108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Notoyax17/pseuds/Notoyax17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A side fic for Of Lovebugs and Promises. Little bits of crack in their daily life that I can't quite fit into the current flow of the story.<br/>----</p><p>[Of Lovebugs and Promises Summary<br/>Special Agent Phil Coulson of the FBI is competent man when it comes to solving cases. Competent, busy and not at all good with children.</p><p>But somehow he found himself tripping into parenthood (again and again and again)...and he really has no idea what to do with that.</p><p>(So far: Clint, Natasha, Tony, Bruce, and Steve.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Family Matters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil, of course, has two families. The one he's raising and the one that raised him.
> 
> This takes place before Steve came into the picture

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been holding on to this one for a WHILE.
> 
> (If it's not clear, "bold + italics" are past conversations. I used underlines in there because I realized that emphasis is not really clear when you have one word not italicized in a row of italicized text.)
> 
> Continued thanks to my lovely beta, QueenoftheQuill!

_**“So… I met someone new on a case today. Long story short, he’s living with me now.”** _

 

Margaret Coulson, who preferred Maggie and hated Peggy (there’s no P in her name, _Phil_ , it doesn’t even make sense) loved surprises. Be it planning or receiving, she enjoyed the thrill of it. And, as the oldest of four children, she’d had a lot of opportunities to get better at it.

 

Like all Coulson children, she was raised to be considerate and courteous on some level. In her case, that meant planning surprises that the guest of honor would actually _enjoy_.

 

For Phil, that meant quiet get-togethers with some wine and those mini ice cream cakes that the bakery in their hometown makes out of angel dust and dreams (probably). Considering that she hadn’t actually seen her brother’s face in years because of his habit of letting his work take over, she hadn’t bothered trying to invite him down to her place, four states inland. While they do talk often, at least a couple times a week, it wasn’t the same as lying on the couch and pointing out inaccuracies in their favorite action movies.

 

So she was breaking into his house instead.

 

Well, breaking in sounded harsh. She had a key as well as his frequently updated security codes. But she was sneaking into his house when she knew (because she’d called to make sure) that he was going to be at the office until past midnight in the hopes that when he got home on his birthday, he’d be able to celebrate it in style.

 

If she was lucky she could probably get Phil’s roommates to help her set things up.

 

\----xxxx----

 

**_“I’m starting to think Clint likes her more than me. I mean, I’m glad he’s making friends but...”_ **

****

**_“You’re just used to being his favorite. Phil, trust me, Clint adores you. That’s not going to change. He still makes time for you, right?”_ **

****

**_He chuckled softly, “Right. Right, of course you’re right.”_ **

****

**_She grinned, not bothering to hide her smirk since it wasn’t as if he could actually see her. “I always am.”_ **

 

Maggie put her car in park in the overflow visitor parking lot around the corner. It wouldn’t be much of a surprise if he saw her car in the driveway. She gathered her supplies, six hefty Walmart bags, and made her way down to Phil’s condo.

 

She reached his door at 11:28pm. Maggie set the bags down and flicked through her keyring for the one painted red, white, and blue and used it to unlock the door as quietly as she could. She vaguely regretted not getting Phil to leave her with the numbers of all the house’s occupants. Pepper was out of town and Maggie honestly cringed at the idea of calling her to get their numbers. She’d just have to maybe wake them up. Well, from what she’d heard about them, Bruce and Tony would probably still be awake. Shouldn’t be too hard to rope them into putting some tasteful decorations up.

 

\----xxxx----

 

**_“So how was Peter? He and Liz are married now right? What’s that like?”_ **

****

**_“I- Jesus, you make it sound dirty. I’m not going into locker room talk with- ...The hell?”_ **

****

**_Maggie stood up a little straighter as she checked and rechecked the seat belt on her daughter’s car seat. “Phil? Is everything okay?”_ **

****

**_There was a soft sigh through the line. “Tony took apart the coffee maker,” he said. It was said with the level of gravity of someone reporting the death of a beloved friend._ **

****

**_Though, to be fair, that was what he was doing._ **

****

**_“He made up some coffee before he took it apart,” came a voice in the background. It took Maggie a moment to recognize it as Pepper’s voice, tinny as it was. There was a soft sigh, a pause, and then a quiet slurp. Then a deeper, much happier sigh. “Right? I don’t know what he messed with this time, but it’s surprisingly good,” she said, sounding clearer now that she’d moved closer to Phil and almost like she was laughing._ **

****

**_“Remind me to remind him to only do this sort of thing during the day. When I’m not here to see my coffee maker being gutted.”_ **

****

**_Maggie bit her lip and put the phone on speaker so that she could leave it on the dashboard as she started her car._ **

****

**_His pain was admittedly (almost) unreasonably funny. She was a big sister, it was okay for her to say that, right?_ **

 

Maggie shut the door behind her, after nudging the bags in with her foot and disabling the security system. She re-enabled it and turned the knob on the wall to get the dimmer lights on. She’d been about to pick her bags back up when she heard the telltale click of the safety being taken off a gun. Breathing slow, she straightened up carefully, only to find a young girl staring at her.

 

Dark red hair curled around her young-looking face, doing nothing to detract from the dark glare or the gun aimed at the center of her forehead. Her head was cocked slightly and her eyes were narrowed.

 

“State your purpose.”

 

Maggie offered the girl her calmest smile, breathing slow through her nose to keep from hyperventilating. She was a teacher. If she could handle teenagers getting drunk illegally at Disney World, she could handle this.

 

“Do you know where you are?” Maggie asked carefully. She kept her voice even and clear, no condescension, no talking down.

 

The girl blinked and her lips turned down minutely though she didn’t respond.

 

“This is the home of an agent with the FBI. I don’t know how you got in here, but he’ll be home soon and you don’t want to be here for that. Would you like me to take you home? We don’t even have to call your parents.”

 

The girl’s eyes narrowed slowly.

 

“Uh, we _are_ home. Who the heck are you and what do you want with Coulson?” came a voice to her left.

 

Maggie let her eyes shift without turning her head. There was a little boy there with two older boys. They were all watching her warily.

 

The fact that they knew Phil’s name was only a little concerning. If they lived in the neighborhood, they definitely would have heard it around. She gave them a smile that was almost _sharp_ , deeply enjoying the way all three boys tensed slightly.

 

She was definitely going to be calling some parents.

 

“I’m his _sister_ ,” she replied pointedly.

 

There was a long beat of silence at that. The children, including the redhead, taking her eyes off Maggie for the first time, glanced at the blond boy who shrugged and shook his head.

 

The smallest boy snorted. “Well, we’ll just see about that!” He pulled out a small phone (a Stark Platinum 6, his parents must be _loaded_ ) and hit one of the buttons. It must have put the phone on speaker because she could hear it ringing loud and clear.

 

“Hello? Is everything alright?” And that was _Pepper’s_ voice.

 

“Hey, Pep! Some lady’s here. She says she’s Phil’s _sister_.” It was clear from his tone that he didn’t believe that to be even remotely possible.

 

And sure, she looked more like her dad than her mom (who Phil took after), but they were still perfectly sibling-ish looking!

 

“Hey, Pepper!” Maggie called out, since she doubted that the boy would be willing to hand his phone over at the moment.

 

“Maggie? Hey! What are you- Oh, is this for Phil’s birthday?”

 

Maggie smiled at the looks of surprise and begrudging acceptance on the children’s faces. “Yeah. So what’s going on? Are you guys babysitting? Because that normally requires you to _be_ with the kids.”

 

There was an alarmingly long silence at that. Even the children were staring at her, clearly bewildered.

 

“Maggie, they’re… Phil… he told you that he adopted some kids, right?”

 

Maggie startled sharply. Because no, he sure as hell had _not_. She reached down and took the phone from the little boy. “ _What_. You don’t just…” She lowered her voice a touch so that she wasn’t shouting. “Do his roommates even know yet?”

 

“I- What? His roommates?” Pepper asked.

 

Maggie resisted the urge to grind the heels of her hands against her eyes. She knew that Pepper was rarely around, but this was ridiculous. “His _roommates_ , Pepper,” she said, lowering her voice even further. “How does this even work? I’m sure they’re lovely people but Phil can’t just come up one day, say ‘Hey, Clint. FYI, I’m fostering some kids now, hope that’s cool!’ and expect them to all be okay with it!”

 

“I’m Clint.”

 

Maggie blinked at the interruption. She glanced up from the phone at the sandy haired boy. “What?”

 

“ _I’m_ Clint.”

 

She stared at him for a very long time before slowing turning towards the red haired girl. “...Natasha?” she asked, voice wavering.

 

The girl nodded.

 

Maggie blinked hard and stared up at the ceiling, praying to whatever deity that was currently available for the strength to not murder her little brother.

 

“Hold on a second,” Pepper said.

 

There was ringing then and after a moment, Phil’s voice came on the line. “Hello?”

 

“Phil, Maggie’s at your place and-”

 

Phil snorted softly, “Of _course_ she is. I think she’s the only one that would hop on a plane for-”

 

“ _Phil_. Did you not tell your family that you have _kids_?”

 

“Of course I-”

 

“ _No_. No, you did _not_ ,” Maggie shot back.

 

She could actually _hear_ Phil’s answering frown. “I talk about them all the time.”

 

“You talk about them like they’re _adults_ ,” she corrected. “You met them _through work_. Those were your _exact words_ , Phil.”

 

“So you thought that… what, Phil just up and decided to get four, well five, roommates?” Pepper asked carefully. “And that didn’t seem weird?”

 

“Weirder than Phil, the most awkward of awkward uncles, just up and deciding to adopt four kids?”

 

Even Phil’s children shook their heads in sheepish concession to that point.

 

“Okay… well, this isn’t really that bad though?” Phil offered.

 

Maggie lowered herself slowly to sit down on the floor. She used her free hand to brush her bangs up and out of her face. “Phil…” and this seemed like a bad time to break the news but she honestly felt he deserved it at this point, “You’ve been living with Clint and Natasha for a while now and, uh, with the way you talk about them… Mom and Dad were sort of hoping for a… a, uh, ‘happy _announcement_ ’ by the end of the year involving one or both of them.”

 

There was a sharp crash on Phil’s end, no doubt from a coffee mug he’d lost his grip on. Maggie couldn’t tell if Pepper was choking or laughing.

 

Clint tilted his head in Natasha’s direction. “A happy announcement?”

 

When Natasha shrugged (it wasn’t a term she’d heard either) Bruce offered, “They thought one...or both, of you were going to marry Phil.”

 

Both immediately perked up at that. “Nice!”

 

“No! Not- WHY?” Phil called out once he’d finally managed to find his voice.

 

“Because you _gush_ about them the most and - and I cannot stress this enough - _we thought they were adults_.”

 

“But... _both of them_?”

 

“We’re not gonna judge you for _finding love_ , Phillip, whatever floats your boat,” she cooed, with a perfect mimic of the dreamy sigh their mother had let out the last time had asked about his love life, nearly five years ago.

 

Phil actually seemed to be hyperventilating a little.

 

“So… who's going to be breaking the news to your parents that they have grandchildren that their son hasn’t thought to bring out to see them?” Pepper asked dryly, more than happy to get in on raking Phil over the coals for his poor decision-making.

 

Phil gasped sharply. “Maggie, _lovely, lovely Margaret_ -” he started, his tone a clear precursor to asking for a favor.

 

Rather than try to talk her way out of that (because Phil could be alarmingly convincing when he wanted to be and she wanted NO part of that), she just cackled evilly and hung up, all the while maintaining a straight face.

 

Maggie handed the phone back to the boy (who she just now realizing was Tony freaking Stark, how had she not figured _that one_ out sooner), who stared at her with both eyebrows raised high.

 

She stared back in silence for a moment before something started nagging at the back of her mind.

 

“Wait, he let you guys stop a _bank robbery_?”

 


	2. Birds and the Bees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil’s walked in on his kids doing a lot of weird things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...yeah, this happened. I don't even know how to tag this tbh, so if there are any known triggers in here, let me know?
> 
> This is after Steve but before the whole Bucky issue.

Phil’s walked in on his kids doing a lot of weird things. So as much as he wanted to say that what he saw that day was the weirdest, he knew that it would be a lie.

 

It wouldn’t even make the top five.

 

At least he could say it was the most embarrassing (for him).

\----xxxx----

 

It was a late Saturday morning. Everyone was either sleeping (Pepper and Tony) or lounging around (everyone else but him, apparently). So Phil had peeked into Clint and Natasha’s shared bedroom in the hopes of getting them to watch Supernanny with him. They liked to yell at the children on the screen and it made Phil feel better about his own mad parenting skills.

 

“That looks super uncomfortable,” Clint said.

 

“It’s a movie. Everything’s mostly uncomfortable,” Natasha replied.

 

When Phil opened the door wide enough to see what movie they were watching, he blanched.

 

It was porn. There was really no nice way to say that.

 

He wasn’t sure which end or what position Clint was referring to as uncomfortable-looking but considering that the girl was servicing four guys, Phil couldn’t help but imagine that every part of that was at least vaguely uncomfortable.

 

“Shouldn’t she be choking?”

 

Natasha rolled her eyes. “She’s stronger than you, obviously. It probably takes a lot of practice.”

 

Clint bristled slightly, squinting at the screen. “I could do that!” he protested.

 

“Oh?” Natasha asked, eyes glinting with a smirk on her lips. “Wanna bet? Two weeks allowance says you can’t. We could try with one of the cucumbers in the fridge?”

 

“Shouldn’t we buy like… sausage or something? There’s gotta be some give in there, right?”

 

“ _Oh my god.”_ It was honestly mostly vague exasperation in his voice. Phil was past the point of alarm or embarrassment. He honestly didn’t know which was worse: the fact that his children were watching porn _together_ or the fact that they were so _clinically interested_ in the whole thing.

 

They didn’t even have the decency to look startled or embarrassed when they turned back to look up at him.

 

“Tell Clint that he can’t fit a cucumber down his throat.”

 

“Tell _Natasha_ that I totally could!”

 

Phil opened his mouth to agree with Natasha then closed it with a click because _that wasn’t the point_. He glanced at the ceiling, took a slow breath and faced his children again. “Where did you get that movie?” he asked calmly.

 

“Wade was giving them out at school,” Clint said simply. Phil took a moment to run through the list of “Wade’s” from the school that his kids had mentioned.

 

“…Wilson?” At Clint’s nod, Phil squinted in mild confusion. “… _Why?”_

 

“Because he ordered a bunch of copies of _Back Alley Explosions_ to give out for next month's Valentine’s Day party and got _Back Door Explosions_ instead?”

 

“And his solution to that was to give them out _anyway_ instead of trying to return them?”

 

“…You’ve _met_ him, right?” Natasha asked.

 

Phil’s eyes shifted away and back because, _yeah_ . That kid seemed like a bundle of gummi worms held together by cotton candy fluff on his _best_ days. After a moment, he picked up the remote and turned the TV off. “Just…don’t learn about sex from _porn_ , okay?”

 

“Why shouldn’t we learn from people who do it for a living? Isn’t that the point?” Clint asked.

 

Since Phil had absolutely no intention of trying to explain what the point of porn was he deflected with, “For the same reason you wouldn’t learn about gun safety from action movies.” Both cringed visibly at that.

 

They had _strong_ opinions about Action Movie Gun Safety Failures.

 

And he would have felt comfortable walking away from this conversation and never (ever) referencing it again if Natasha hadn’t countered with, “Then who will we learn from? Are _you_ going to teach us?”

 

His expression must have shown at least _half_ of the sheer volume of _NO_ he felt at those words because they both grinned wide at him.

 

_Freaking sharks._

 

But Phil wasn’t in the mood to back down from that and if they wanted to make things awkward, _he was going to make things awkward._ “You know what? _Yes._ ” Their grins died a little at that, Natasha’s eyes actually growing a little wider. “In fact… Tony! Bruce! Steve! House meeting! Living room!” he called out.

 

Natasha’s eyes narrowed slightly, the only one of the two old enough to understand the true _depth_ of what was about to happen. “You’re bluffing.”

 

Phil just smirked at her in response. “I’m going to go get my laptop!”

 

\----xxxx----

 

By the time everyone else managed to converge in the main living room, Natasha was sitting on the couch bent over with her forehead touching her knees as Clint gave her awkward pats on the back. Tony, only vaguely awake on Pepper’s shoulders, and Bruce stared at them in increasing confusion.

 

Steve glanced at them and then over his shoulder at Phil who was setting up his laptop on a counter and a shoebox full of stuff. There was a literal pep in the man’s step. “What’s going on?”

 

“Phil’s going to…teach us about sex?”

 

Steve, Bruce and Pepper visibly recoiled. Pepper rolled her lips inward and let her eyes shift from Phil to Clint and Natasha. “I kind of want to watch but I also don’t want to _be_ here for this,” she admitted.

 

Tony scowled and buried his face in Pepper’s shoulder. He’d _woken up_ for this nonsense. “What’s the big deal? Males have a thing. Females don’t have a thing. You check a box on a form and move on! Why do we need a presentation for this?”

 

Steve actually smiled at that. “Huh. This might actually be funny,” he murmured, smile dimming at the dark glare he received from Natasha.

 

\----xxxx----

 

“So, as you can see here,” Phil continued, holding up his prop so that they could see it better once he had finished. His prop being the nine inch tall and three inch wide bedpost he’d unscrewed from his own bed. He had applied a thin coat of olive oil to it before very carefully rolling a condom on over it (which wasn’t ideal, he’d explained, but he had no desire to explain a lube purchase to the accounting department, so the kids could just deal).

 

“As long as you go slow, there should be no problem for you or your partner to wear one generally. If the person that you’re with tells you that they can’t find a condom that fits them, chances are that they’re lying or uninformed. And if that’s not the case,” Phil actually paused for a moment to glance at the bedpost in his hand and then back to the children, “um… Maybe reconsider? We already went through the non-penetrative forms of sexual contact. So pick literally anything else. _Anything else._ If for no other reason than the fact that you love _me_ enough to save me from hearing that from a doctor.”

 

To Phil’s mild irritation, his audience, save Pepper and Bruce, smiled as if they would actively consider something of that nature _just_ to see the look on his face.

 

Seriously, some people’s children.

 

Narrowing his eyes at them suspiciously, Phil added, “If I get a call for that, _Nick’s_ going to be the one to pick you up. And you can explain to _him_ why you thought that was a good idea.” That seemed to ease off some of the manic _glee_ on their horrible faces. Except for Steve, who was doubled over and silently laughing so hard he looked as if he might vibrate off the couch completely.

 

Phil allowed himself a tight little smile, his eyes narrowing further.

 

It’s fine. The next section was on Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

  
  
  
  
  



End file.
